Marketing Planning

This document provides an overview of marketing planning for British Airways. It includes a review of changing perspectives, evaluation of BA's ability for future marketing activity, techniques for organizational auditing and analysis of external factors, barriers to marketing planning, and strategies to overcome them. It also includes a marketing plan for the launch of new services for BA.

Marketing Planning
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Marketing Planning
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Marketing Planning
Contents
Introduction:................................................................................................................................................3
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Using relevant theories, review changing perspective in marketing planning....................................4
1.2 Evaluate BA’s ability for planning its future marketing activity........................................................4
1.3 Examine techniques for organizational auditing and for analyzing external factors that affect
marketing planning..................................................................................................................................5
1.4 Carry out organizational auditing and analysis of external factors that affect marketing planning in
BA...........................................................................................................................................................6
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................................7
2.1. Assess the main barriers to marketing planning................................................................................7
2.2. Examine how organizations may overcome the obstacles to marketing planning.............................9
Task 3........................................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Marketing plan for the launch of a new services for BA..................................................................10
3.2 Marketing planning is essential in the strategic planning process for BA........................................11
3.3 Examine techniques for new product development..........................................................................12
3.4 Recommendations for pricing policy, distribution and communication mix for the new product....12
3.5 Explain how factors affecting effective implementation of the marketing plan have been taken into
account..................................................................................................................................................13
Task 4........................................................................................................................................................14
4.1 Explain how ethical issues influence marketing planning................................................................14
4.2 Examples of how BA responds to ethical issues..............................................................................15
4.3 Examples of consumer ethics and their effect on marketing planning in BA...................................16
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................17
References............................................................................................................................................18
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Marketing Planning
Introduction:
British Airways is a significant International Airlines, and it provides their flights to 590
destinations and in 135 territories. The organization is mainly operated from Gatwick and
Heathrow. The company has faced many difficulties like 535 million pounds revenue loss for the
reason of employee relationship and strike problem of the employees, lack of International
marketplace analysis and the other things. So, the only scope to win over these difficulties is to
apply and maintain an effective marketing strategy for successfully carry on the company. The
British Airways includes some techniques such as security and safety of the stakeholders,
customer relationship, improvement in technological instruments, employee relationship and
much more. The British Airways is a global airline of full service, and it offers low fare rate all
the year round with the comprehensive global route map flying from and to the centrally situated
airports.
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Task 1
1.1 Using relevant theories, review changing perspective in marketing planning.
A marketing plan is a multiple tool that helps the management to recognize everything about the
company. This indication shows the management the flaws of their plan and how to achieve their
aims and redefines the way in a new product or new marketplace against the opponents. A good
market plan must comprise with the deliberation of new perspectives. The BA has noticed that
their service is only affordable for the noble people, then they have taken the decision that their
service must be provided to a large number of individuals rather than upper class. They have
changed their notion in marketing planning by applying new strategy, and this becomes helpful
for the company(Aaker, 2013). They have reduced boarding rate as many people can afford the
BA flight quickly and this process grabs the attention of the commoners and then the company
makes more profitable business than other competitors.
1.2 Evaluate BA’s ability for planning its future marketing activity.
Organizational capability can be defined by the company’s core competence, strengths,
weaknesses, synergetic effects, resources, and behavior. It shows the capacity of the organization
by which they can use their strength against the weaknesses and make new opportunities to face
the external environment. The organizational ability of BA for planning future activities are- core
competence, brand effect, a uniqueness of the company, synergistic effects, global network,
resources and behavior of the company, high prices, weaknesses, availability of the flight when
at a particular time, good quality service of the company, etc.
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1.3 Examine techniques for organizational auditing and for analyzing external factors that affect
marketing planning.
The customers or the passengers of BA are the keystones of the marketing technique that
connected with auditing and investigating the organizational and external factors like a market
environment of BA. These factors are accumulated first, then explained correctly. The regulatory
factors are:
Company objectives and mission: the main aim of BA should meet the target customer and target
market for carrying on their business efficiently. They should fix their target, and then they
should follow the path to the way of achievement. BA, the largest airways in the UK, is situated
in London, provides their flights to 400 cities regularly. They should intend to create repeat
passengers for business or travel passengers(Bogomolova, 2011).
Company resources: management construction, information technology, and finance are
including in this. That also states the relationship between capital funders, partner, and stuff.
Existing customers: passengers’ satisfaction, expectations, dissatisfaction, relationships are
included in this.
Marketing environment can be identified by the PEST and SWOT analysis. PEST analysis helps
to impact on company's activities, and the SWOT analysis helps for the assessment of future
situation and culture of the BA. The management should understand the requirements, behavior,
and motivations of the prospective customers.
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1.4 Carry out organizational auditing and analysis of external factors that affect marketing
planning in BA
For carrying out corporate auditing and analyzing the external factors that affect the marketing
technique of BA is needed the SWOT analysis. The SWOT symbolizes strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. The chief aim of the management is to take advantages of
opportunities and strengths of the market and meanwhile to reduce the defects and remove the
threats. The forces of the British Airways are-
Market share: the British Airways possess more than 50% exchange business in the UK, and that
is the most significant strength to compete with the other airlines all over the globe.
Skilled and expert employee: the BA possesses maximum able and competent employees that
help for the development of the company.
Quality procedures and processes: the British Airways provides the high-quality process and
procedures when the passengers avail their flight. Before boarding on, they also get the better
facility than the others(Cadle et al., 2014).
Business location is strength of the BA, as the airport is situated in the heart of the UK. Other
strengths are new and innovative service provision, maintaining brand loyalty, etc.
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The weaknesses are- they have suffered heavy losses due to lack of International market and the
authority sometimes fail to break down the internal issues and cannot make long lasting
solutions. They also have opportunities for technological innovation, resistance potentiality of
the staffs and management both and the partnership going with the other big airlines, etc. they
also have threats like ever changing, and dynamic marketing atmosphere, loss of vital workers
due to business strikes, weather, natural calamity and Icelandic ash are also the crucial threats for
their business.
Task 2
2.1. Assess the main barriers to marketing planning.
A great marketing planning and strategy are required significantly, and the planning and strategy
are the most critical components for any company. However, there are some barriers of
marketing preparation for sometimes. There are different examples such as:
Failure of cooperation in the management: if there are some problems between the managers and
authority in the organization like British Airways, then the marketing planning and strategy may
face some barriers or difficulties to sustain their business quickly. When the financial department
and the human resource management department are not interested in sharing their goals and
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Marketing Planning
resources, the whole business may face some diminishing situation. The non-cooperation
between the administration in the organization can create a worse situation as the marketing
struggle will be lost by the non-cooperating system in the management and staffs(Donoghue,
2013).
Lack of inspiration of change: if the marketing manager cannot motivate their employees and
other staffs correctly, and if those persons don’t feel the requirement to overcome or face the
threats and difficulties, then the overall business may be affected by this barrier. Another
problem is when the employees cannot be interested in grabbing the opportunities that have
emerged in the company by taking a real marketing planning; it can create a main barrier to a
good marketing strategy.
Lack of knowledge and skills: All the employees of the British Airways should be skilled and
knowledgeable for utilizing the advance technological equipment. The marketing manager
should also have the skills and knowledge to develop a successful business strategy. Without
proper efficiency and wisdom, the marketing manager may lead the company to some silly ideas
and plans.
Overconfident with difficulties solution: if the manager shows some overconfidence to solve
some problems within the marketing management of the company, then it can create some
inappropriate or flawed solutions of the complications. This is one of the main barriers to the
marketing planning of the organization.
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2.2. Examine how organizations may overcome the obstacles to marketing planning.
Various procedures help the company to overcome the barriers to the marketing planning. The
different techniques are-
Strategy before tactics: the marketing manager should make some tactics before implementing
strategies for carrying on the business of British Airways. The manager creates some tactics by
surveying on the marketplace, and he should identify the potential harm or benefit that the
company may face afterward. After completing his survey on the position and situation of the
market, then the manager should confirm the policy as a strategy for their business.
Informed values of marketing: as a marketing manager, he should take the responsibility to
inform about the facilities of the British Airways to the consumers as the customers make their
attention to the privileges on their flight journey to the various destinations as they wish. This
technique makes the company policy impressive as the passengers will be well aware before
their boarding(Expanding opportunities for women entrepreneurs, 2008).
Scan the market thoroughly: the marketing manager should scan the environment in where they
have to deal with the customers from a different economic condition. The marketing manager
must notice on the facilities provided by other airlines; then they have to set their budget as they
can grab more passengers along with middle-class people also and this will be helpful for the
company for gaining more profit.
There are other techniques for applying these the marketing manager can overcome the
difficulties quickly, such as: establishing market within the operations, making construction
around marketing and sequence objectives, knowledge and ability, culture and style of the
employees as they can serve the best service to the consumers.
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Task 3
3.1 Marketing plan for the launch of a new services for BA
Marketing plans are very essential documents as far as the market evaluation; goal and marketing
results are concerned. It can be said that the marketing plan has various effects in the field of the
business. There are four steps approach of marketing plan that includes the following,
Setting the Goal: The main goals of British Airways are to provide the best servitude to the
people of Britain. There are many more companies in UK those are trying to grab the market of
UK with their exciting products and servitude. The main aim of BA is to grab the market with
unique products and service that can differ the company from the other companies.
Situational analysis-Marketing audit: In this case there are two conventional ways to analyse
the different environment of the market. PEST and SWOT analysis are the most common and
overall accepted processes. SWOT analysis mainly concentrates on the internal and external
factors of the market whereas PEST analysis only explains the external factors of the market.
Here in this scenario marketing audit helps to clarify the opportunities and threats in the market.
It also allows a stakeholder to make necessary changes to the marketing planning only if needed.
In this case SWOT analysis has been done in order to know the conditions of the internal and
external environment of the business.
Strategy formulation: In this stage the marketing objectives and strategies are mainly
described. Marketing objectives clearly replicates the intension of the company about their
position in the future market. Marketing objectives actually helps a company to concentrate on
its limited resources and to increase sales. It helps the company to survive in this competitive
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market. There are different types of management strategies like, plc matrix, bcg matrix, ansoff
matrix and 4Ps. The marketing strategy of 4Ps or the marketing mix will be selected in this paper
for effective strategy formulation of BA.
Monitoring and Control: In order to recognize the financial status of an organization, the
budget plan and cash flow statements both are reviewed by the management before
implementing any kind of marketing strategy. In the process of marketing planning, the
marketing manager needs to control and monitor different kind of allocated process which will
be executed for future marketing planning. The marketing manager needs to take careful
consideration on different types of marketing process which directly or indirectly influence the
performance of the organization(Gagliardi, Brouwers and Bhattacharyya, 2014).
3.2 Marketing planning is essential in the strategic planning process for BA
In order to execute and properly implement marketing strategies, the marketing plan plays an
essential role in an organization. Different types of marketing process are measured by the
consultation and approval stakeholders of an organization. Apart from that an effective
marketing plan influences the productivity and profit margin of an organization. There are
several types of advantages included in a proper marketing plan which will be discussed below,
 Focussing on the target audience
 Recognizing the actual requirements of the customers
 Estimating the demands of the products
 Recognizing potential customers
 Analysing core competency and competitive advantages(Jenks, 2011).
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In order to conduct a successful marketing plan, an organization needs to focus on above
mentioned factors for critically analysing the potential opportunities and threats. In other words
with the help of strategic marketing process, an organization can recognize current marketing
opportunities which will be beneficial for future perspective.
3.3 Examine techniques for new product development
The new product development includes different types of process before launching in the
competitive market. The management of an organization needs to focus on these aspects related
with new product development process. In addition the new product development process helps
the management of BA to recognize the growth and demand of new products. The process of
new product development involves some critical stages such as, conception of production,
market research process (SWOT analysis), approval of concept, marketing process, final
development of concept and testing of products(Munger, 2013).
3.4 Recommendations for pricing policy, distribution and communication mix for the new
product
In order to satisfy customers, the management of BA needs to provide quality service to their
customers. According to recent report, most of the customers are demanding excellent products
or service in low price. In other words, the customers are basically price sensitive and they want
to spend minimum amount by exchanging and enjoying high quality service. The management of
BA needs to focus on price policy of their services carefully because in the airline industry many
famous and strong competitors already exist. In other sense, the management of BA should apply
low price strategy in order to retain and draw the attention of potential customers towards their
organization. In the airline industry, the air hostess plays essential roles in order to satisfy the
customers through polite behaviour and interactive communication. In other words, the
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management of BA needs to provide effective communication training to their senior air hostess
to satisfy their valuable customers. Distribution is dividing the services among the employees of
BBA. It can be elaborated in this way that BA must put efficient employees in the different part
of the organization(Seijts and Latham, 2012). This will help the company to be effective in the
market and the people of UK will get attracted to use the servitude of the company. It will help
the company to build reputation in the airlines market.
3.5 Explain how factors affecting effective implementation of the marketing plan have been
taken into account
The marketing plan can increase the profit and minimize the threats of business by analysing
potential opportunities and threats in the current market. There are some effective factors are
influencing the implementation process of marketing plan which will be discussed below,
Poor management support: In order to execute and implement the marketing plan, the
management including the senior manager have a massive role to play. In other sense, without
the contribution of the management, a marketing plan cannot be executed properly. The
marketing manager of BA needs to focus on the direction and orders of high authority for further
process.
Budget Limitation: The market research process includes lots of financial expenses which
needs to be paid by the management. In other sense without sufficient amount of money, a
market research process cannot be executed properly by the marketing manager of BA.
Moreover, the management of BA should provide enough funds to the marketing manager for
conducting a successful marketing research.
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Task 4
4.1 Explain how ethical issues influence marketing planning
Ethics actually carries principals of right conduct that has the ability to shape the decisions of
people or the organization. Practicing ethics in the marketing has addressed the standards in
moral principles, wrong decisions and fairness. The main reason behind practicing ethical issues
is to stopping someone to make any delay in the organizational task or taking any advantages
from unethical activities. In the field of the business it can be said that once the economic system
of BA fulfils the criteria and demands of the customers, then they have to think about their
ethical awareness and ethical values. It is crucial from the company’s point of view as the ethical
practice of the company may put a positive impression in the mind of the customers and the
customers also would try to use the servitude of the company again and again. Moreover, if any
company takes part in the unethical activities then it can be said that the customers will not be
satisfied by the servitude of the company. It may lead to customer dissatisfaction, lost business
opportunities. The business may also lose their reputation in the business field due to bad
publicity. In short it can be said that the unethical marketing practice may influence the good
marketing process but it affects the marketing plan in an effective way. In this scenario most of
the organization like BA gives all their focus in order to train the employees of the organization
in the most efficient way so that the employees can handle the organizational environment better.
This will develop the customer relationship and the business will be marked as a long term
business. Moreover, there are social responsibilities which are subjected to marketing practices.
These practices are mainly done in order to protect consumer rights, avoiding the unfair trading
and stretch the business in a wide range(Sharma, 2017).
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4.2 Examples of how BA responds to ethical issues
In this stage the responses of BA can be described in an effectual way. It is suggested that the
managers of the company has to play vital roles in order to give proper training to his or her
subordinates to make them learn about the usefulness of ethical practices. Each and every level
of the organization must come to know about the importance of ethical practices. This is the only
way to create the awareness of ethical practices. BA has done something similar to these. The
company has divided the responsibilities among many departments. The head of each department
has the responsibility to give their employees lesson about ethical practices.
The organization must set a training team who can train the employees of the company about
ethical issues. In this scenario, BA has done the exact thing. The employees of BA are self
disciplined and capable of taking ethical decisions even in complicated situations. There are
some unethical issues that can be happened in the institution:
Product: The misleading information of the servitude of the company, lack of quality can raise
ethical issues inside the organization or it can affect the customer relationship too.
Price: In the field of pricing ethical issues can be seen if the price of the product is greater than
the quality. It means if the quality of the product remains low while the price goes high then
ethical issues can be raised. BA has solved this kind of issue by setting the quality of service
according to the price (Ganguli and Roy, 2010).
Place: There are various places from where the servitude of BA can be gained. The company
must make sure that the cost of the services must be remained same in all kind of situation.
Being an airways company, BA has many platforms from where the tickets can be booked. The
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company must be loyal enough to make the prices of the fare same every single website. In this
way the ethical issues in various places of the company can be avoided.
4.3 Examples of consumer ethics and their effect on marketing planning in BA
There are many ethical issues that an organization may face. In various field of the business the
consumers may also face some ethical issues while taking the servitude of the company. There
are many types of customers who may try to take some servitude from the company which is
illegal according to the ethics. The company must not provide the illegal products to the
customers otherwise it will harm the reputation of the company. For an example, BA provides
different facilities depending on the tickets customers buy. There are economy class and business
class tickets where business class holds the highest priority. In this scenario if a customer wants
to take the facilities of business class after booking for economy class then the company cannot
provide that as it is against the rules and regulations of the company (Jeffko, 2014). The
customers in this case have to take full responsibilities by being ethical in this sort of situation.
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Conclusion
A perfect market planning needs the promotional activities at its best. This is the only way to
promote a product in the market effectively. It can be said that all the issues in the business and
all the advantages and disadvantages of the service of the products can be determined by proper
market planning. The strengths and the weaknesses of the company can be pointed out where the
marketing mix strategies can also be elaborated. Market planning is very essential according to
the business point of view. A proper market planning plays a vital role in order to decide the
success of the business.
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References
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Bogomolova, S. (2011). Service quality perceptions of solely loyal customers. International
Journal of Market Research, 53(6), p.793.
Cadle, J., Eva, M., Hindle, K., Paul, D., Rollason, C., Turner, P., Yeates, D. and Cadle, J.
(2014). Business Analysis. 1st ed. Swindon: BCS Learning & Development Limited.
Donoghue, J. (2013). Indentured Servitude in the 17th Century English Atlantic: A Brief
Survey of the Literature. History Compass, 11(10), pp.893-902.
Expanding opportunities for women entrepreneurs. (2008). 1st ed. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.
Gagliardi, A., Brouwers, M. and Bhattacharyya, O. (2014). A framework of the desirable
features of guideline implementation tools (GItools): Delphi survey and assessment of
GItools. Implementation Science, 9(1).
Ganguli, S. and Roy, S. (2010). Service quality dimensions of hybrid services. Managing
Service Quality: An International Journal, 20(5), pp.404-424.
Jeffko, W. (2014). Contemporary ethical issues. 1st ed. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.
Jenks, C. (2011). Transcribing talk and interaction. 1st ed. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Pub. Co.
Munger, R. (2013). Document-based cases for technical communication. 1st ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's.
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Seijts, G. and Latham, G. (2012). Knowing when to set learning versus performance
goals. Organizational Dynamics, 41(1), pp.1-6.
Sharma, R. (2017). Comparative Analysis of Retail Banking Promotional Measures- A
study of customer perception towards promotional strategies adopted by Indian Commercial
Banks. Scholedge International Journal of Management & Development ISSN 2394-3378,
3(11), p.185.
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